An abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between 3000 and 6000 m. Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth âs surface. They are among the flattest, smoothest and least explored regions on Earth.
Jim Beckwourth. On this day in 1844, Jim Beckwourth discovered a path through the Sierra Nevada Mountains that now bear his name. Beckwourth Pass on U.S. Alt 40 between Reno, Nevada and Sacramento, California made overland travel to the gold fields of California. Tweet.
Originally a free pack trail route when first used in about 1851 by Major John Ebbetts, it was improved to a wagon road and became a toll road to silver mining towns in eastern California and western Nevada from 1864 through 1910, and then a free county road in 1911. It was used by very few emigrants to California.